Note (return) — Barber's Barn, Hackney.

Hackney was once distinguished by princely mansions; but, alas! many of these abodes of wealth have been turned into receptacles for lunatics! Brooke House, formerly the seat of a nobleman of that name, and Balmes' House, within memory surrounded by a moat, and approached only by a drawbridge, have shared this humiliating fate. Sir Robert Viner,1 who made Charles II. "stay and take t'other bottle," resided here; and John Ward, Esq. M.P. whom Pope has "damned to everlasting fame," had a house at Hackney.